Tag: SJSU

A couple years back, a sprawling cadre of journalism bloggers (myself included) participated — at least, for a few months — in a blog carnival.

Now without getting into the sordid details of what makes a blog carnival, and [INSERT CRACK ABOUT HOW NOBODY BLOGS ANYMORE BECAUSE YOU ALL HAVE THE TWITTERS AND WHATNOTS], it was a relatively pleasurable experience. A topic, a deadline, and the shared experience of a bunch of people writing about the same thing at the same time.

Superfluous Creative Commons stock photo of the 2009 Alameda County Fair, by WHardcastle.

One of the Knight Commission‘s recommendations is to “Increase the role of higher education…..as hubs of journalistic activity.” Another is to “integrate digital and media literacy as critical elements for education at all levels through collaboration among federal, state, and local education officials.”

Okay – great recommendations. But how do we actually make it happen? What does this look like? What University programs are doing it right? What can be improved and what would be your ideal scenario? Or is this recommendation wrong to begin with?

ReportingOn, my Knight News Challenge project, did double duty as my Master’s project, and the scope I presented in my report covers the first iteration of ReportingOn, through Feb. 1, 2009 or so, when the development of the next version began.

When I have some time (ha!), I’ll put a screencast equivalent of Monday night’s presentation up here, although it will be harder to get across all the good and important questions that the faculty and students asked.

Congratulations to all my friends and peers at SJSU who presented their research on Monday, and of course, to all my friends from MCOM 210, 250, 270, 290, and 295 — you know who you are.

Meanwhile, development of the next phase of ReportingOn continues. I’ll have more news about it soon.

“Grow some cojones.
Let me level with you. The world doesn’t need more music reviewers or opinion spouters. The world needs more people willing to ask tough questions. The first step to reversing journalism’s tarnished image is to have the guts to dig for information the public can’t easily find themselves, and be an advocate of unbiased, straightforward truth.”

A damn fine idea. Knowing the classrooms and newsrooms she’s working in, it makes even more sense.